An Integral Approach to Sustainable Decision-Making within Maritime Spatial Planning—A DSC for the Planning of Anchorages on the Island of Šolta, Croatia

Towards Sustainable Management of Anchoring on Mediterranean Islands—Concession Support Concept

The focus of this paper is to define anchorage management model for concession planning purposes to provide quality support to experts in spatial planning when developing maritime spatial plans. The research aim is to develop an anchorage management model that includes decision and concession support concept. Decision support concept is defined in order to support the processes of identifying potential anchorage locations, their evaluation and comparison, and finally, the priority ranking and selection of locations for their construction. The final step is modelling the concession support concept that includes financial analysis to concession parameters definition. The problem of decision making and concession of the anchorage location selection is complex and ill-structured because of the unsystematic and ad-hoc decisions by all included stakeholders. Additionally, the involvement of several stakeholders’ groups with different preferences and background knowledge, a large amount of conflicting and seemingly incomparable information and data, and numerous conflicting goals and criteria impact final decisions. The proposed concepts overcome the above obstacles in order to enable the construction of anchorages in a way of optimal use of maritime space. The model is tested on the island of Brač, Croatia. The methods used to solve the task are SWARA (The Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) for defining the criteria weights and ELECTRE (Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality) for ranking anchorage locations.

A Multi-Criteria Decision Support Concept for Selecting the Optimal Contractor

A way to minimize uncertainty and achieve the best possible project performance in construction project management can be achieved during the procurement process, which involves selecting an optimal contractor according to “the most economically advantageous tender.” As resources are limited, decision-makers are often pulled apart by conflicting demands coming from various stakeholders. The challenge of addressing them at the same time can be modelled as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. The aim of this paper is to show that the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) together with PROMETHEE could cope with such a problem. As a result of their synergy, a decision support concept for selecting the optimal contractor (DSC-CONT) is proposed that: (a) allows the incorporation of opposing stakeholders’ demands; (b) increases the transparency of decision-making and the consistency of the decision-making process; (c) enhances the legitimacy of the final outcome; and (d) is a scientific approach with great potential for application to similar decision-making problems where sustainable decisions are needed.

A Sustainable Approach for the Maintenance of Asphalt Pavement Construction

The aim of this paper is to present a new decision support concept (DSC) related to the ever-growing problem of the maintenance of damaged asphalt pavements. In the process of defining a sustainable approach to resolving this problem, we found complexity in the different needs considering economic, social, and technical aspects. An additional contribution to the problem’s complexity was the many road sections that need to be ranked based on their need for maintenance. The priority ranking was based on the multicriteria Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE) method and the Analytic Hierarchy Processing (AHP) method. The DSC implementation contained the inclusion of relevant stakeholders and the definition of goals through identification of several different criteria and their weights. This approach to criteria determination provided a final ranking list of spatial units for maintenance, satisfying the needs of all stakeholders. The DSC presented in this paper was tested in the city of Split for the most important roads needing maintenance of asphalt pavements.

Decision Support to Sustainable Parking Management—Investment Planning through Parking Fines to Improve Pedestrian Flows

With the urbanization and expansion of cities, which have taken place over recent decades, new demands and problems are emerging, among which is the problem of inadequate transport infrastructure. The number of motor vehicles is growing, while transport infrastructure is not following that growth fast enough. One of the problems that arises is the insufficient number of garages and parking lots, causing an increase in illegal parking on sidewalks, which impedes and endangers pedestrian traffic. This paper proposes a new decision support concept (DSC) for the management of illegally parked cars in urban centers, which offers a method that can contribute to solving this problem and improving the flow of pedestrians on city roads. Due to its complexity, the problem addressed in this research is recognized as a multicriteria one and therefore the proposed model is based on the use of multicriteria analysis methods—more precisely, the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation—PROMETHEE, and the analytic hierarchy process—AHP. The proposed DSC is validated in the city of Split (Croatia), more precisely in the neighborhood of Sućidar, which shows that this methodology is applicable and effective for finding not a temporary but a permanent solution to the problem described.

Identifying the Key Barriers to Promote Sustainable Construction in the United States: A Principal Component Analysis

The need to build more facilities has intensified the inherited adverse impacts of the construction industry on the triple bottom lines of sustainability (i.e., people, planet, and profit). The current practice of sustainability in the construction industry is far from reaching the targeted green goals. In order to foster these endeavors, this study aims to explore sustainable construction barriers in the United States. To achieve the objective, first, 12 sustainability barriers were identified based on an excessive and comprehensive literature review and solicitation of experts’ opinions to validate the barriers. Next, a questionnaire survey was developed and distributed among 135 industry professionals to evaluate the relative importance of factors. To offer a practical solution, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the data and find the most effective barriers. The results show that four major barriers, including (1) pre-construction constraints, (2) managerial constraints, (3) legislative constraints, and (4) financial and planning constraints are the most influential challenges that the industry faces to foster sustainable construction. Practical solutions are suggested to tackle sustainable construction barriers. The findings of this study are beneficial to the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry members along with owners and policymakers.